Latino culture at Parkview Festival

Parkview residents will celebrate the diversity of their neighborhood Saturday with the Taste of the World Festival, featuring food, music, dance, children’s activities and games from Mexico, Guatemala, Ethiopia, Trinidad and

Caribbean.

Among the participating artists is David Amoroso, who will demonstrate how to make “Papel Picado,” designs on paper typically used to decorate the streets and patios in Mexico and Central America for Fiestas and cemeteries during observance of el Día De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead). Festival goers will have the opportunity to make Papel Picado to take home or decorate the Community Center.

Among the Latin American artists and artisans showing their work on Saturday is the multitalented Angelica Lopez. The Guatemala native made traditional tamales made with rice masa our Hola Cultura’s TamalFest DC last year. She is also an accomplished weaver and will demonstrate using her back-strap loom during the festival and will have finished weavings for sale.

There will also be a couple of Latin American dance troupes performing in the full traditional costumes they typically donned for important fiestas.

The Guatemalan folkloric dance troupe, Grupo AWAL, will perform. AWAL means “the sowing of the seeds” in the Mam Mayan language spoken in Guatemala. It is the native tongue of group members, who say they continue honoring their indigenous roots as a way to pass on this rich heritage to their children by teaching them the dances and cultural presentations of their Central American homeland.

Ballet Folklórico Yaretzi will take the stage to perform Mexican folkloric dances from states of Jalisco, Vera Cruz and Nayarit. This group hails from Philadelphia and looks forward to sharing their diverse and colorful folkloric dances and dresses with the District crowd.